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A flesh-eating plant that grew in Russia about 40 million years ago has been discovered by scientists.

Its fossilised leaves, preserved in Baltic amber, are strewn with multi-cellular stalked glands and single cell hairs.

The new species was dug out of a mine near Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and is believed to be related to the 'flypaper trap' plant Roridula, found in the southwestern Cape of South Africa.

A flesh-eating plant that grew in Russia 40 million years ago has been discovered by scientists. Its fossilised leaves, preserved in Baltic amber, are strewn with multi-cellular stalked glands and single cell hairs

Roridula catches small prey - largely insects - with its leaves that are covered in an extremely sticky glue produced by the glands or tentacles.

Like Roridula, the Russian plant's leaves show evidence of different sized tentacles with which it would have captured prey and smothered it in slime before releasing digestive enzymes.

The tentacles, as well as the glands on the leaf surface, absorb the nutrients from the prey.

Describing the discovery in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers believe the fossils, dating back to 35 to 47 million years ago during the Eocene.

They could represent early members of Roridula's family called Roridulaceae.

Pictured in A and B are the carnivorous leaf found preserved in Eocene Baltic amber. They look remarkabley similar to the leaves found in modern-day Roridula gorgonias (C and D)

The tentacles, as well as the glands on the leaf surface, absorb the nutrients from the prey. Pictured is a close up view of the tentacles in amber. Scientists say this represent early members of Roridula's family called Roridulaceae.

Dr Eva-Maria Sadowski, of Gottingen University in Germany, said it is believed to be the first case of carnivorous plant traps being fossilised.

'Amber - fossil tree resin - preserves organisms in microscopic fidelity and frequently fossils preserved in amber are otherwise absent in the entire fossil record,' she said.

'Plant remains however are rarely entrapped in amber, compared with the vast amount of insects and other animals.

'Our newly discovered fossils from Eocene Baltic amber are the only documented case of fossilized carnivorous plant traps and represent the first fossil evidence of the carnivorous plant family Roridulaceae, which is today a narrow endemic of South Africa.'

ANCIENT MOSS IS BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE AFTER 1,500 YEARS 

Scientists successfully revived moss that has lay frozen under Antarctic ice for more than 1,500 years

Earlier this year, scientists successfully revived moss that has lay frozen under Antarctic ice for more than 1,500 years.

The discovery shows, for the first time, that plant life has the ability to survive millennium spanning ice ages.

Moss has previously been known to weather extreme conditions for up to 20 years and is an important player in the eco-systems of both the North and South Poles.

The research was jointly carried out by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of Reading and involved sliced moss cores being taken from Antarctic permafrost and sprayed with distilled water by being kept in carefully monitored temperature and light conditions.

After only a few weeks, the moss started to grow and carbon dating revealed that the plants were at least 1,530 years old.

The results suggest the Roridulaceae's ancestors were spread more widely than thought. 

It also challenges previous ideas that the plant originated about 90 million years ago on the southern supercontinent Gondwana before Earth's landmass split into the pieces we see today.

Dr Sadowski said living Roridula plants are very effective traps for all kinds of insects due to the sticky resinous trapping glue and the hierarchical organisation of the tentacles into functional units for effective prey capture.

Like Roridula (pictured), the Russian plant's leaves show evidence of different sized tentacles with which it would have captured prey and smothered it in slime before releasing digestive enzymes

'The longest tentacles make the first contact with the prey. Due to the high flexibility of these prominent tentacles the moving prey then gets stuck to the medium-sized tentacles which slow down the caught animal,' she said.

'Finally the smallest and stiffest tentacles immobilise the prey. As in modern Roridulaceae the leaf fossils have different size classes of tentacles that fulfil the functional roles for prey capture - entanglement, slow-down and immobilization - and comply with the requirements for a carnivorous nature.

'In addition the pore of the tentacle heads distinguishes the fossils from any other extant carnivorous plants with glandular adhesive traps such as sundews.'

The new species was dug out of a mine near Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and is believed to be related to the 'flypaper trap' plant Roridula, found in the southwestern Cape of South Africa